At Minas Basin and Other Poems — 'By the Love.' - An Easter Idyll

AN EASTER IDYLL.

Twelve months agone The beauteous face, all white with pity as A wave with foam, sank in the dusk of death.

Four summers and the wafture of the fifth Had poured their cataract of gold far down The shining shoulders of the seraph boy, While love, a father's and a mother's, hung Above its laughter like a thing divine.

O golden head that drifted down to death!

Sweet eye and voice by silence swift devoured!

Dawn's kiss upon the forehead of the day!

The fresh-blown surge of grief was stilled, And halcyon hope her azure wings outspread As all the hollow sky on Easter morn Was, like a lily, filled with golden light.

Swift through the hush of death the thrill of life Touched the still chords of the fair mother's heart, And woke unquenchable desire to lay White lilies from the darksome mother-earth Upon the tomb, where circled, like a dove, Her wingëd hopes,--the tomb where long ago White angels watched the birth of Life anew.

Beside the lilied mound she lingered long.

Her rising soul pushed at the gates of death, Till, like a creek from which the moon has drunk The tide, they yawned empty and bare of hope.

All spectral grew her heart with tearless grief As some sweet plot of lichens reft of rain.

"There are no angels now," she said, "to roll The stone away.

O that He now were here To raise my dead, if 'tis not all a myth!"

And as she spoke she lift a bitter face Into the eyes of the bright Easter day.

Not far away she saw a little child Of scarce five years, and drawing near she knew Him one who never felt a mother's kiss,-- Now sitting at the grave where one long month Had slept his father,--kith nor kin bequeathed The boy in the wide circle of the earth.

She knew that, rose and rosebud on one stem, Father and child had crimsoned life with love, And that the wind of death had snatched The rose and left the unsheltered bud alone;

Yet blinded by the night of her own grief Scarce had she seen his golden day's eclipse.

Now swift she marked the tender mobile lips, The spirit-light aglow in eye, on brow, And the rare beauty of the noble face.

"Is your name Mary," fearlessly he asked, "Who with the angels talked when the great stone Was rolled away?

--" "O no, dear child," she said,-- "Whom are you looking for?"

With reverent mien, Yet eager voice, "For Jesus," said the child.

"O Jesus is not here, my darling boy, He's risen, you know."

"Yes," said the wistful face, "I've waited here all day for Him to come And raise my father up.

I thought perhaps He sent you, 'tis so late, to bid me stay A little--O 'tis never too late for Jesus!"

he said, and brushed away the tear;

"He's sure to come, for 'tis the Rising-Day."

The woman stoopt to kiss the wondrous boy, And sat beside him there upon the grave, And sobbed like organ swept by the master's hand.

"What makes you cry?

--perhaps your father's here To be raised up?"

"No darling,--but my child."

He stroked the woman's hand: "Don't cry," he said, "Jesus does not forget the Rising-Day, He'll surely come and give to you your child And me my father--He will come to-night.

I saw the two men who from Emmaus came, Go by at early morn, and Jesus will Meet them, and turn and this way come, as they In wonder all about His dying talk, And rising too.

The men will know Him not, But I shall, and will call to Him to stop And raise my father up."

"How shall you know Him, my dear boy?"

she asked.

"O by His smile, And by the picture father shewed me once, But" (with his hand upon his heaving breast) "I'll know Him best by the love I keep in here."

"Shall you?"

she said, "and are you sure you'll know Your father?"

"My own father!"

said the boy, With wondering voice, "I'll know him by the love, And so will you your child.

They will not look The same, for Jesus did not, but they knew Him by His love."

And finer grew the face As the fond lingering voice, in love's own tones, Repeated: "And we'll know them by the love."

Moveless a moment, as the tide at full, Her heart hung in a balance, and as its Tremulous deeps swayed to the signs of heaven, Its wave broke o'er the banks of self to life.

"Philip," she cried, and clasped him in her arms, "Jesus has gone to heaven, and I am sent By Him to take you to your father now.

Come!"

With faith strong as is the noonday sight, Instant the child clasped home her trembling hand, And passed without the gates, nor backward lookt.

Silent he went, for expectation held Him fast, and a great light was on her face.

Entering her home, she bade that food be given The famished boy; and when the maid brought milk, Honey and bread with broilëd fish, he said, With exultation: "Now I know this is The house--it's all here just the same, and He'll Be here to-night."

With wingëd feet the wife Sped up the stair to meet her husband's step, And in a rapture told him all, and of The wonder-heart below.

"Heaven, a fair child, An angel boy, has sent our stone to roll Away!

For us his vision is no less Than for himself.

O husband, this is life's Supremest hour for us!

--'_I shall know him By the love_,' sweetly he says."

--"It shall be So indeed!"

cried the father's yearning heart.

As she returned, the child most eager said, In a sweet voice half-sob, but full of hope, "O wash my face and comb my hair, before I see my father--'tis not too late yet?"

The touch of the ineffable child-trust Pierced deep her heart, yet with assuring tones The words fell: "Philip, come, let us now go To him."

The arras opened on a face Noble and winsome sweet, though smiles were close To tears.

As azure bird on mountain stream Halts a brief moment on some jutting crag, Ere as a flash of streaming light it cleaves The dewy darkness of the trickling dell;

So for a moment halted the sweet child, Took one step forward, and then leapt into The arms where death-shade once was deep as night, But where commingling love now glads the gloom, All lit by the sweet azure of the heart.

With head thrown back, and questioning eyes agaze: "Father--you're--changed!"

he said, "but by the love, We know each other--by the love, the love!"

The father's heaving heart did echo sweet, "The love, the love!"

And nestling down upon The manly breast, the curly head, soft-stroked, And soothed with all the lullabies of love, Was rocked, like harbored sail, to rest of sleep, Lapt in the love which fed his simple faith, And poured a golden Easter in the heart Of her who groped in darkness 'mong the tombs.

NOTES.

Page 17. _and erst "rose noble" bore thy grace.

_--The "rose noble," an ancient English gold coin, first minted by Edward III.

, was stamped with the figure of the rose.

19. _The phantom of the buried tide.

_--This phenomenon is not infrequently seen in the evenings of the last of August or early September.

It is caused by the condensation of the invisible vapor of the air resting on the dyked lands--the former sea-bed.

As the condensed vapor lies close upon the ground, the illusion of a full sea is complete in the moonlight, the shore line and creeks being perfectly traced.

28. _The title deeds of these rich shores are thine.

_--Geologists affirm that Partridge Island is older than the mainland, or than the other islands mentioned.

29. TENNYSON ROCK.

--This rock is the pinnacle of Pinnacle Island (one of the Five Islands, Basin of Minas).

The rock is solitary, and nearly two hundred feet high at low water,--a seated figure strongly resembling, as seen from the Basin, Lord Tennyson in his old age--with his cloak about him.

32. GLOOSCAP.

--The divine man of the Micmac Indians.

His home was on the shores of the Basin of Minas, particularly at Partridge Island, the Five Islands, and Blomidon.

He sailed away "into the west," because of the wickedness of men and beasts, not to return till they should heed his voice.

(See "Legends of the Micmacs," gathered by the late Rev. Silas Tertius Rand, D. D. , LL.

D, of Hantsport, Nova Scotia, and published by Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.

) 40. DAY AND NIGHT.

--The last three lines of the sonnet refer to the "afterglow," which often appears (at Minas Basin) from half an hour to an hour or more after the first sunset colors have entirely faded into dusk.

45. MAYFLOWER.

--_The Trailing Arbutus.

_ 48. THE GHOST FLOWER.

--The _monotropa uniflora_,--a true flower, not a fungus.

It grows in the deep shadows, the entire flower and stalk being colorless and wax-like.

It has white, wax-like bracts in place of green leaves.

The cup nods, and stalk and flower together often form an interrogation point (which fact, it will be observed, determines the cast of the sonnet).

The flower is widely known as the Ghost Flower, but is often called Indian Pipe.

52. MCMASTER UNIVERSITY.

--Founded as a distinctively Christian university, by the late William McMaster, of Toronto, merchant, founder of the Bank of Commerce, and a member of the Senate of the Dominion of Canada.

54. _Areopagus ...

Furies.

_--The sessions of the Areopagus, the highest judicial court at Athens, were held on Mars' Hill.

The Cave of the Furies was beneath the same rock.

66. _And shewed the prints of palfrey's shoe.

_--These tiny horse-shoe prints, many of them sharp and perfect even to the nail-heads, may be seen in abundance on the branches of any horse-chestnut tree.

82. _Had I two loaves of bread_,--Mohammed.

_Or let me die_--Wordsworth,--uttered in view of his emotion at the sight of the rainbow.

84. THE DRAGONFLY.

--The species of neuropterous insects referred to in the poem deposit their eggs in water.

The grub lives at the bottom of the lake or pond, creeping on the submerged parts of aquatic plants and feeding on aquatic insects.

When the final transformation is about to take place, the body of the insect becomes swollen until, lighter than the water, it rises to the surface.

As its skin dries, it splits at the back, and the perfect insect comes forth, with body and wings quite soft and moist.

When dry, the wings expand, until presently the insect spreads them, and soaring upwards, begins to dart to and fro in the full enjoyment of its new and wondrous life.

115. _The moon at her utmost poised.

_--The moon is in meridian at high water in the Bay of Fundy.

159. "BY THE LOVE": AN EASTER IDYLL.

--The story on which this poem is founded was published in the _Congregationalist_, by Helen Strong Thompson, as a true incident of the Easter of 1894. Transcriber's Notes Words surrounded by _ are italicized.

Small capitals are presented as all capitals in this e-text.

Apparent printer's errors and inconsistent spellings have been retained.

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